Landfill operator blacks out records about free dumping

Monday

Aug 14, 2017 at 5:41 PMAug 15, 2017 at 6:31 AM

Bill Bush The Columbus Dispatch @ReporterBush

The operators of the public Franklin County Landfill say that numerous emails officials sent concerning thousands of tons of material a company dumped for free — and even discussions of newspaper stories and editorials revealing the dumping — may be blacked out under the state's Public Records Act.

The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio redacted the text of dozens of emails from a Dispatch public records request. They are protected by attorney-client privilege, said Rebecca Egelhoff, SWACO's general counsel.

The redacted emails were circulated among several office middle managers, including the public-relations manager, and included or copied Egelhoff. They have subject fields such as: "response to Dispatch editorial," "weekend Dispatch story" and "yard waste." Egelhoff said the emails were "to secure legal advice."

They were sent around the time of a Dispatch article in May that broke news that yard-waste and mulch company Kurtz Brothers had dumped almost 800 truckloads of waste for free in late 2016 and early 2017.

At least one of the emails was also shared with city and county officials who sit on the SWACO board of directors.

SWACO sent over 1,600 pages of documents in response to The Dispatch's request, but they were largely the same documents repeated dozens of times. SWACO could not immediately explain Monday why that happened.

While the dumping started over a year ago, "there is no active litigation on this matter," said SWACO spokeswoman Hanna Greer-Brown.

Kurtz hasn't dumped anything since April, and landfill managers have "been instructed not to accept any other loads from Kurtz," Greer-Brown said.

Emails that were not redacted show that SWACO operations managers were concerned by the sudden surge in the volume of debris that Kurtz was bringing into the dump free of charge. The company said it was trash and debris removed from compostable yard waste, which it is allowed to dump for free under its contract.

In February, accounting manager David Logan wrote Perry: "As an FYI Kurtz brought 85 trucks to the landfill yesterday."

About two weeks later, Perry emailed Kurtz Brothers President Thomas Kurtz, saying some of the trucks dumping for free were loaded in Alexandria, near Granville, well outside of the SWACO district. "You will be invoice(d) for the tonnage that came in. Currently, we have shut off your trucks from coming into the landfill until we find a better way to resolve this issue."

Kurtz responded that the debris had been taken from yard waste in Franklin County, but had been transferred to Alexandria for storage.

In March, Perry emailed Kurtz again, saying that while its contract with SWACO allows free dumping of material pulled from yard waste, "it seems to be much more than that."

Kurtz told The Dispatch in May that so much material got delivered in a short time because the company sold its 36-acre Groveport mulch facility in January 2016 for just over $4 million and needed to clear the site.

"It was kind of like cleaning out the garage," Kurtz said. "Everything that was on the site had to go with it."

bbush@dispatch.com

@ReporterBush

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